Are You Also an "American Picker"?

There is a television show on one of the cable channels called "American Picker" where two guys travel across the country and purchase used/vintage/retro items for themselves or they sell it and make $$. In Menominee MI, where I live, they do a Spring Clean-up at the curb in May. It's very tempting to find a few goodies on the side of the road for the garden!! I know of people who take vacation days to hunt for things!! My boyfriend, Ken, who is just as bad as me, brought home this table and I was way excited! I should have taken a before photo of the plain brown table but... I primed it white and then started painting. I am loving oranges in the garden this year and many of my annuals are orange mixed with pinks, yellows and blues. The first photo is the finished table with a few plants on it and the second photo is the fun wood details which makes it so special. I also discovered a new magazine called Flea Market Gardening and realized there are lots of "pickers" out there. Are you??  P.S. It is too nice outside to be in my studio and I will finish my statue of liberty quilt before the 13th of June when my guild meets.

Yes, I Do Other Things Besides Quilt-I Garden!!

Since it's May and my 2011 flowers are still babies I am showing you a photo of last yr's garden because I do other things beside quilt!! I love to garden and this is a photo of the awesome garden shed Ken made using recycled materials such as weathered wood, windows from an old milking barn, old rust hinges, old chair, old bear trap on the wall, old garden tools, old door, a rusty horse shoe to hook the door etc. I just found out the Landree/Ceesay Gardens are selected in the Marinette/Menominee area Garden Walk on July 15-16, 2011. We live on a quiet street and not a lot of people see my flowers, Ken's stained glass stepping stones and benches, the pond with fish and frogs, our many flea market/"American Picker" finds and my funky garden art. So here's our big chance! I'll post more about this in July when I get the details.

I have a gardening friend, Jennifer Larabbe,who manages the flower shed at Walter Brothers True Value, and she lent me this awesome gardening magazine "Flea Market Gardening" and I discovered they have a website, www.fleamarketgardening.com and a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/fleamarketgardening. Very cool to see other people garden in the same style as Ken and I. Check out the magazine, blog and Facebook page!!

My Quilts are in Quilting Arts Magazine!!

This is the best snail mail I could have received-three complimentary copies of the June/July 2011 Quilting Arts Magazine is which my article on my portrait quilts is in!!!!. I saw a Call to Entry on the Facebook page for Quilting Arts Magazine in January when they were looking for people who do portrait quilts. I filled out the necessay info and emailed it and about a month later the Editor-in-Chief, Pokey Bolton, had left a message on my home phone asking me to call her. Holy crap, I was on the phone in no time. I had a 2 week deadline to write the article and mail 5 of my quilts to their facilities in MA. Pokey specifically asked for my Tina Turner quilt and then went to my website and picked the other 4. I wrote a bio which is in the beginning of the magazine and I am first because my last name is first alphabetically!! Then "Tina" is on the Table of Contents page and my article is on page 42. They did a beautiful job of photography and used 4 out of the 5 quilts in the article. I have to say I assumed they would write the article but I understand now that I needed to write my process to creating my art and only I can do that. This was a good example of stepping outside of my comfort zone and I now feel more confident as a writer. This was interesting though to take what is in my head and put it in instruction form and hope others will understand. The whole process happened very fast and the magazine's assisant editor, Ellen, was wonderful to word with. This put a fire under my tush to add my workshops/lecture page and info to my website.  I am offering 5 workshops, both half and full day, and 2 lectures. Check it out at www.laurieceesay.com. A shout out to David Walker my web designer for the awesome work. www.davidwalker.us. He unfortuneately is not taking any new clients because he is slowing down his work schedule but check out all the great work he does-he is a quilter, web designer, photographer and former teacher.

I do not think the June/July 2011 issue of QA Magazine is out yet beauase I have not received my subscription issue in the mail but I had to share my news!!

Artist Blog Hop

Sorry no picture this post just a comment about another great blessing that I received today. Mary Nassar who has a blog, www.marycnasser.com/blog, responded to my blog and introduced herself. She found out about my blog from a blog called www.mizkatie.com who is a painter who specializes in portraits (Yeah portraits!!) Miz Katie took the time to look over many artist blogs and chose 500 of them to be on her artist blog hop. My blog is in the 400s and I thank Mary C. Nasser for bringing it to my attention. So I am very thrilled to have my blog and my art quilts getting attention and people liking my work.  I hope to have lots of free time to check out all the blog!!. It seems to have a lot of portrait artists. Check it out and Miz Katie and Mary are also on Facebook.

Back to Sewing!!

My entrepreneur class ended last Monday and the last thing I needed to do was complete my business plan. This was detailed, time consuming and parts were quite difficult. But I finished it on Saturday since the weather has been yucky and I have not felt this relieved in a long time. So it's time to get back in the sewing room because I missed it a lot!! I want to do a modernized funky Statue of Liberty for 2 reasons. One, my daughter, Jordana, loves her-she said she was going to grow up to be the Statue of Liberty. I hinted that her arm would get kind of sore holding the torch up all the time!! Second I like blues, reds, stars and stripes. I plan to do the same technique as my Menominee Mermaid and have cut 30 6" squares which you see in the photo. I have some fun 1940s pin up girl fabric from Cher Alexander which will be on the corners (I think). The raw edged fused applique will be in a dark blue batik.I next step is to draw the Statue of Liberty and make my applique pieces then piece the squares, fuse and quilt with red, white and bule varigated thread. I have some fun star embellishments and plan to have it done to put it up in my house for the 4th of July.

Menominee Mermaid

I have been collecting these great blues, greens, teal and turquise fabrics to make a wall hanging and then I decided to do a mermaid quilt. I started with wanting her to sit on a rock but then should I do a realistic mermaid or a "line drawing" mermaid with the pretty fabrics showing through?? I went with the second choice. The size of this piece is 22.5 x 25 which made the face too little for any applique except the mouth. I drew and painted the face to complete it. I cut 25 different 5" squares in blues, greens, teals and turquiose and added the bottom row of browns to get a rectangle and to have more of a "rock" color going on w/o deviating from my original color theme. My co-worker Sherrie at Pizazz Salon, where I work, said "don't you ever do a lighthouse in your quilts?" I then make a Mr. Yucky face since that motif is everywhere in Menominee because we have a lighthouse on the Bay of Lake Michigan. But I needed something in the upper left corner and thought that would be funny and I had to go no further than the cover of the local phone book to figure out how to draw a lighthouse!! Miss Mermaid is embellished with a blue starfish in her hair which also has strands of blue gliiter. Her face is painted with nail polish, Smooch paint and fabric paint. There are beads randomly sewn and I made fish buttons out of Sculpy clay and painted them with teal nail polish. Every summer at Spies Public Library in Menominee there is an art exhibit for any local artist to display their work. I will be putting this piece in the show and will not be doing Show and Share at Northwoods Quilters first because of the timing. The exhibit will be on display until the end of August.

Here is a close of Menominee Mermaid's face and hair.

Northwoods Quilt Show Demos

My local quilt friend, Lisa Thoune, was camera happy on Saturday and took this photo of me doing my fabric postcard demo at the Northwoods Quilt Show this weekend. I did one on Saturday afternoon and one Sunday late morning. I had a nice group of ladies come to the table. I printed 5 copies of my new Intro to Portrait Quilts pattern "Angelina" and thought I'd try to sell them while I was demoing. I sold 1 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday including one to an area quilt shop that seemed interested in me teaching my techniques. Hooray!!! Lisa has a blog http://www.gitdownkitty.blogspot.com/. I plan to do an story soon about Lisa but if you want a sneak peak check out her blog.

Lisa also took a picture of my new pattern. I named her after a flower because I also love to garden and I thought this was a logical way of naming future patterns and then I began with a "A." So the next pattern will be a "B" name. So if you are interested in a pattern I would love to send you one and even teach a class on it. E-mail me!!! Also a shout out to Glenda Banta from Marinette WI who was my Print Shop instructor!!